Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.

"Any ground intervention on Syrian territory without government authorization would amount to an aggression that must be resisted," Moallem said at a news conference in Damascus.

"We assure you that any aggressor will return to his country in a wooden coffin."

Saudi Arabia, Moallem said, is implementing the US will, and “it seems that after Syrian army’s victories, the conspirators and funders have got fed up with their tools on the ground, and that they decided to get involved themselves.”

Moallem, however, ruled out such a move, but still recalled “their crazy decisions made not only against Yemen but also regarding other areas.”

Meanwhile, Moallem warned that “Everyone should realize, on top of all (UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan) de Mistura, that Syria is going for a Syrian- Syrian dialogue without any preconditions and will not comply with any precondition set by any party whatsoever.”

“The two Vienna Communiqués and the Security Council Resolution (2254) stress on the broadest representation of the opposition delegation” the Syrian FM said, adding “…We told them ‘do not repeat the mistakes of Geneva 2’.”

The top Syrian diplomat said that the Security Council resolution no. 2254 and the two Vienna Communiques state that the Syrian people alone have the right to determine their future and that dialogue should be a Syrian- led among the Syrians without foreign interference and without preconditions, while the statements of “Riyadh opposition” delegation, made even before the go to Geneva, were full of preconditions.

‘We asked the UN Special Envoy for Syria de Mistura to provide us with a list of the names of those with whom we were going to have dialogue, because we wouldn’t hold dialogue with ghosts,” the minister said.

US Seeks to Turn Syria into the "Libya of the Levant." February 5, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - As Aleppo is finally encircled and begins the process of liberation from NATO-backed terrorists who have besieged and occupied parts of the city since 2012, and as Syrian forces backed by its allies overwhelm enemy fronts across the rest of Syria, desperation across the West is palpable.

"Peace talks" in Geneva have all but collapsed with the West and its collection of terrorists and client political fronts coming to the negotiation table with absolutely nothing to bargain with. The political component of the West's proxy war has been ineffective and impotent almost from the beginning of the conflict in 2011. The militant component has been waning and upon Russia's entry into the conflict, folded over and sent on the run.

Image: NATO-armed and funded terrorists encircled, starved and besieged Libyan cities like Sirte and Bani Walid on the ground as NATO airpower pounded them from above. The result was not humanitarian salvation, but absolute and enduring devastation.

This tenuous position has caused the West to once again dust-off its plans to invade and occupy Syrian territory along the Turkish-Syrian border - in the last remaining Islamic State-Al Qaeda supply corridor yet to be cut off by Syrian and Kurdish forces.

The call has manifested itself in both Turkish and Saudi military preparations, and now in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

As the talks proceed, Obama and Kerry must also consider stronger measures to protect millions of civilians at risk, including establishing humanitarian corridors to reach those subjected to air assaults by the government and attacks by terrorist groups on the ground. Most important, we believe the Obama team will have to reconsider what it has rejected in the past: the creation of a safe zone in northern Syria to protect civilians, along with a no-fly zone to enforce it.

Of course, between this measure, and calls for the US to dump further resources into the defeated proxy terrorists on the ground in Syria, all Burns and Jeffery are proposing is the transformation of Syria into the "Libya of the Levant."

Readers should recall that precisely the same prescription was applied to Libya in 2011. "Moderate rebels" were also armed, funded, and given aircover amid a NATO-enforced no-fly zone in order to overthrow the government. What resulted was an orgy of genocidal mass murder and then the subsequent fracturing and destruction of the nation-state that was Libya.

Today, the Islamic State has carved out a stronghold within Libyan territory, while two Frankenstein governments wage war against each other and a myriad of warlords across an apocalyptic, war-torn wasteland.

Images: Libya's so-called freedom-fighting "moderates" literally just repainted their trucks after NATO's 2011 intervention, becoming ISIS' Libyan branch. The US now finds itself justifying yet another military intervention in Libya to fight the very terrorists it helped arm and put into power in 2011.

Far from protecting civilians or addressing humanitarian concerns, the United States' actions in Libya devastated an entire nation and has left it in what will likely be decades of deadly, disruptive conflict. So poor are the prospects of the Libyan people, many have fled to neighboring states as well as across the Mediterranean to Europe - hence a contributing factor to the ongoing "migrant crisis."

America's last option in Syria will likewise divide and destroy the country should it succeed. It will condemn tens of thousands of civilians to violent sectarian-driven deaths and drive hundreds of thousands more out of Syria into neighboring countries and onward to Europe to escape the predictable chaos.

The only "safe haven" that will exist will be for terrorist factions ranging from the "moderate" Al Qaeda groups the US and its allies openly back, to the Islamic State which the West more covertly backs. As Libya has been used to destabilize and launch operations against its neighbors, so too will Syria - being aimed at the remnants of the Iraqi government, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and of course Iran itself.

Image: For those complaining ceaselessly about the migrants produced from the West's global meddling and warmongering, now would be a good time to speak up against attempted intervention in Syria by the West in a last ditch effort to collapse the government in Damascus and create division and destruction that will turn a steady stream of refugees into a cataclysmic flood.

For Syria and its allies, they are already bleeding upon the battlefield to prevent this fate from passing. For Europeans and North Americans wringing their hands over the ongoing migrant crisis, now is an opportunity to speak up before it is intentionally, premeditatively compounded further still.

Saudi occupied Arabia has announced it will seek the illegal authorization from the US to illegally invade the Syrian Arab Republic, at the upcoming Syrian-less meeting on Syria, in Brussels. Saudistan has been a member of the war criminal coalition bombings of the Syrian people, since President Barack Obama made his terrible announcement on 10 September 2014, using the killing of an American, illegally in Syria, as cover story. As the Saudis had asked permission of the US to launch their campaign of genocide against Yemen, there is the possibility that the upcoming request has already been asked and answered, and that the public one in the private meeting will be a formality.

White House-GCC meeting 14 May 2015

The Saudis, by the way, have failed so miserably in their attack on Yemen, to install a puppet regime, there, that they have had to commit to extreme domestic austerity, in order to fund their Decisive Storm operation.

It should be also noted that the Saudis have had ‘boots on the ground’ since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, except their troops have not been in uniform.

By mid-2015 the Saudis were executing at such a high rate that they had to hire 8 new beheaders, and it looked as though they might break their 1995 record of 195, in their death penalty. They were short by 35 persons. This is the tyrannical monarchy who asks US permission to commit mass foreign atrocities.

On 17 April 2012, the Saudi Wahhabi fiefdom gave legal immunity to 1,239 of its death row inmates, dispatching them to murder Syrians.

From Najd, the horn[also, “century”] of Satan will emerge. — Prophet Mohammed, PBuH

On 29 August 2013, Mint Press reported interviews with terrorists of the FSA (before it sub-divided into separate gangs of mass-murderers) who lamented having killed many of their own with chemical weapons (most likely hydrogen cyanide, HCN), in al Ghouta, prompting them to rat out the Saudis as having provided the missiles. Though Mint was the sole source of this information, the report rings true, as the FSA were not competent enough to have been given the VX, used in the rabbit-killing video in the Turkish lab, with threats to unleash the neurotoxin on the Syrian people, and had only been ‘successful’ in using the primitive weapons-grade chlorine.*

Mint Press 29 August 2013

On 3 December 2013, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Bashar al Ja’afari — restrained by the US State Department to a 40km/25mi censorship — announced that 300 Saudi terrorists had been arrested, in Syria, and that thousands of others had been killed.

The Saudi occupiers of Arabia hate Syria with pathological venom. They hate that Syria stands, despite being invaded by terrorists from 100 countries around the world, for almost 5 years. They hate that Syria is civilization, thousands of years old, rich in culture, trade, beauty. They hate that the Syrian people love their president, and continue to sing, الله، سورية، بشار وبس .

Damascus has seen all that has ever occurred on earth, and still she lives. She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires, and will see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies. — Mark Twain

*

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By Franklin Lamb

Damascus

It is widely recognized that the damage done to our cultural heritage in Syria and to the heritage of those who will follow us, cannot be calculated. Untold quantities of archaeologically vital artifacts have been looted, sold, displaced and discarded through industry-like efforts.

Citizens of Syria who are increasingly resisting the “IS Caliphate” and risking their own and their families lives to flee ISIS controlled areas in Syria are often willing to discuss their experiences and to offer instructive insights.

Among these patriots are regular citizens as well as the stellar nationalist employees of Syria’s Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) who this observer has interviewed extensively over the past nearly three years as they elucidate why ISIS destroys and loots our irreplaceable antiquities. This observer’s research has been augmented by other eyewitnesses, some who are themselves former jihadists or their victims, to ISIS looting and its distribution of franchises to sell off our shared cultural heritage give witness.

Heretofore, three varying but cogent explanations for ISIS’ rabid destruction of our shared cultural heritage have been commonplace.

The first identified the well documented Islamic State iconoclastic antipathy towards their and our pre-Islamic past. The second is that the jihadists are generally considered to be profiting hugely from selling our looted antiquities.

Thirdly there has been some evidence-but not compelling in this observers judgment, that jihadists are destroying our cultural heritage in Syria as ‘publicity stunts’ to get attention on social media, with some motivated by profit and offering to sell Syrian artifacts via Facebook, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. Meanwhile, according to a US Congressional staffer this week, leftover artifacts are currently being sold by IS to locals at public auctions including but not limited to Raqqa, Mari, Dura-Europos and Deir al Zor.

With respect to the first and second explanations, it is well documented thatISIS has ransacked thousands of artifacts from dozens of World Heritage and archaeological sites in Syria and that the profits from flogging cheap our cultural heritage helps IS meet its monthly budgets, more than 50% of which goes to pay salaries and multiple relatively generous benefits to its fighters and their families.

Yet research by this observer on this subject concludes that ISIS looting income, contrary to many claims including a recent one by CBS News that reported that ISIS generated “hundreds of millions of dollars” from antiquities transactions, although that figure—which rivals the annual haul of antiquities sold legally throughout the entire world, has not been backed up by probative, material data.

One expert, Randall A. Hixenbaugh, Director of New York based Hixenbaugh Ancient Art, told a Manhattan conference recently, “We’re looking at objects that are worth hundreds of dollars here. When we say that these antiquities are worth millions of dollars, where is the evidence of this? I think that prompts people to pick up shovels in eastern Syria. Are we not adding to the problem right now, by hyperbolic assessments of value?”

On May 15, 2015 a raid by American Special Forces on an ISIS safe house in a small village outside Deir ez-Zor killed ISIS leader Fathi Ben Awn Ben Jildi Murad al-Tunisi, better known by his nickname Abu Sayyaf who was in charge of overseeing the excavation of our cultural heritage. The raid also freed an 18-year old Yazidi slave woman, and captured a trove of documents that revealed far lower amounts from marketing cultural heritage artifacts than earlier estimated. The raid also uncovered many USB’s containing documents verifying that our cultural heritage artifacts are for ISIS just a natural resource to be extracted from the ground rather than as “ghanim” a.k.a looted items or spoils of war.

Selling plundered antiquities is frankly not strategic funding for IS compared to oil, banks, taxes and stolen goods. Far from the initial claims that ISIS was making tens of millions or more from stolen antiquities, the true figures are likely far lower. Some antiquities can indeed be sold to the final buyer in Europe, the United States or Asia for large amounts.

But most of the material coming out of the ground in ISIS areas on a daily basis, such as pottery, glassware, coins, and architectural fragments are worth, at most, several hundred dollars at the final point of sale.

The total annual income of ISIS from antiquities is currently calculated by this observer and others who are more expert, at only a few million dollars; compared to, say, oil revenue, which for 2014 was estimated to be between $100 million and $263 million.

Admittedly hard data is tough to come by and while Archaeologists can no longer visit most of Syria, they do monitor cultural depredation in Syria from the secure vantage point of outer space. Employing pretty amazing high-resolution satellite imagery as Oxford University’s Institute of Digital Archaeology (IDA) is doing as it instructs us and gives us hope for restorations of our cultural heritage in Syria with its One Million Images project.

This observer submits that there is a fourth and even more sinister reason that has not been much considered with respect to the Islamic State brand, which admittedly is an ambitious and seductive vision that has proven to be a fairly major social media success. He posits for dear readers consideration that the destruction and looting of our heritage underpins an intricate scaffolding of intense micro-managed social control over its captive populations, a system that is designed to intensely regulate individual behavior.

This even applies with respect to where and when to excavate and to loot our antiquities with maps and time and date-stamped permits in hand, at assigned archaeological sites thought worthwhile to excavate and to strip of anything guessed to be of some value.

Recently ISIS has introduced a highly organized control over looting of our cultural heritage which is evidenced by satellite photos revealing neat rows of looting holes on archaeological sites. As noted above, ISIS considers antiquities a natural resource such as oil or gas along with its large-scale operation of theft of personal and real property. Its Department of Precious Resources (Diwan al Rikaz) which controls mines and minerals also now oversees antiquities and issues excavation permits. Diwan al Rikaz demands on average 20% of objects excavated, it also applies a sales tax and uses social media to augment its marketing while relying mainly on obedient citizens to do the excavation work while its fighters perform their jihadist duties elsewhere. Unlike oil extraction, antiquities looting are not a major guaranteed stream of income in fact locally the activity is a bit of a gamble. As in a Los Vegas casino, many can wager but with only a long shot prospect of a high payoff. The vast majority of artifacts currently being unearthed at sites in Syria are of great archaeological importance but little value on the art market.

Increasing its social control by regulating the theft and destruction of our past is now part of a wider and expanding organizing frenzy of the IS.

The ISIS glossy propaganda magazine, now issued in 14 languages, ‘Dabiq,’ named after a key site in Muslim apocalypse mythology, and which bills itself as a periodical magazine focusing on the issues of tawhid (unity), manhaj (truth-seeking), hijrah (migration), jihad (holy war) and jama’ah (community) frequently features ISIS attacks on Syria’s pre-Islamic heritage sites.

Typical of its taunting of those who value culture heritage is Dabiq’s recent comment:

“Enemies of the Islamic State were furious at losing a ‘treasured heritage.’ The mujahidīn, however, were not the least bit concerned about the feelings and sentiments of the kuffar. (ed: ‘non-believers’). The kuffar had unearthed these statues and ruins in recent generations and attempted to portray them as part of a cultural heritage and identity that the Muslims of Syria should embrace and be proud of. Yet this opposes the guidance of Allah and His Messenger and only serves a nationalist agenda.”

This sort of ISIS iconoclasm mirrors its other social control punishments. Dabiq recently featured a post-card size list of good citizen ‘reminders’ recommending that it be always carried by IS citizens:

“Death for blasphemy against God, death for blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammad, death for apostasy against Islam, death to both the penetrator and receiver of gay sex, hand and leg amputations for theft, more than two dozen violations such as drinking wine earn 80 or more lashes, while “highway criminality” brings death by crucifixion.”

Another sign of intensifying social control by ISIS is found in recently issued laws on Hijab wearing in Syria. According to conversations of this observer with recent women escapees from IS areas in Syria, all women past the age of puberty must comply with the following social control rules on Hijabs or face draconian punishments.Specifically, all women in Syria must wear Hijabs that are thick and not revealing. “It must be loose (not tight). It must cover all the body. It must not be attractive. It must not resemble the clothes of unbelievers or men. It must not be decorative and eye-catching. It must not be perfumed.”

In the south Beirut Hezbollah neighborhood of Dahiyeh, where this observer currently resides, Shia women are known and appreciated for their attractive often richly colored head coverings and scarves/hijabs and for their special way of tying them to one side under their chin that is quite distinctive, attractive and often are conscious fashion statements.

This is forbidden for all Muslims in IS areas of Syria, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere ISIS has control of populations on penalty of 80 lashes.

Further tightening social control is evidenced by ISIS which is currently introducing a higher organized and centralized control over looting of our cultural heritage which is evidenced by satellite photos revealing neat rows of looting holes on archaeological sites.

ISIS considers antiquities a natural resource such as oil or gas along with its large-scale operation of theft of personal and real property. Its Department of Precious Resources (Diwan al Rikaz) that controls mines and minerals also oversees antiquities and issues excavation permits, takes on average 20% of objects excavated, applies a sales tax and uses social media to augment its marketing which relies mainly on obedient citizens to do the work while its fighters perform their jihadist duties elsewhere. Artifacts are now also being sold, according to Syrian citizens who have fled, to locals at public auctions in Raqqa and Deir al Zor.

By controlling antiquities like other resources, ISIS inserts itself into countless holes in the ground. The real goal is not simply cash profit but rather it is psychological control over new ranges of behavior and thought of its subjects which is part of its totalitarian vision of absolute control. ISIS has transformed the pre-Islamic past of Syria into a forbidden zone, a mere natural resource to be exploited. But while the financial profits may be relatively small, more importantly it also offers ISIS yet another way to control the behavior and thoughts of its population, transforming them from captives into dependents of the “Caliphate.”

Increasingly the Obama administration and its allies are frustrated regarding the subject of the need to protect and preserve Syria’s Endangered Heritage. They remain less than confident that ISIS plundering of our heritage in Syria as part of its intensifying social control in its “Caliphate” can be stopped anytime soon.

Yet at the urging of the White House, last week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee worked on H.R. 1493, the Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act and favorably reported the measure for full consideration by the Senate.

The original bill which passed in the House of Representative in June 2015 called for the appointment of an Assistant Secretary of State as the new United States Coordinator for International Cultural Property Protection, commonly referred to in Washington as a “Cultural Czar”. The new language which was designed to obtain early passage, recommends “that the President should establish an inter-agency coordinating committee to coordinate and advance the efforts of the executive branch to protect and preserve international cultural property at risk.”

The mandate of the new inter-agency committee, to be chaired by an Assistant Secretary of State, includes working to protect and preserve international cultural property in Syria while working to prevent and disrupt cultural heritage looting and trafficking in Syria.

The legislation’s mandate also includes protecting sites of cultural and archaeological significance while seeking to provide for the lawful exchange of international cultural property from Syria.

Franklin Lamb’s recent book, Syria’s Endangered Heritage, An International Responsibility to Preserve and Protect, is available on Amazon/Kindle, Smashwords, and other ebook sites as well as in hard-copy in Arabic and English. Lamb is currently based in Beirut and Damascus and reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

On the tenth anniversary of the Memorandum of Understanding between Hezbollah and Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, the head of Change and Reform bloc praised Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah as a friend stressing that his party is still committed to the memorandum signed between the two sides in February 2006.

“We hold upon our pledges,” Aoun told Panorama Today program on al-Manar, stressing that his party is keen to fight both terrorism and the Israeli enemy.

Meanwhile, Aoun noted that the two sides must work on building a state in Lebanon, through activating the role of the Lebanese institutions, stressing that such move could be just by a just electoral system which guarantees proper representation.

For his part, Hezbollah Deputy Chief, Sheikh Naim Qassem, stressed that the alliance between Hezbollah and the FPM is firm and solid as it preserved the Lebanese interest.

He addressed the FPM crowds as saying: “You have seen how this agreement was translated into actions and it was not just through stances. These events (throughout the years) proved the rightfulness of this alliance.”

“This alliance was born to last,” Sheikh Qassem told Panorama Today on Thursday.

Friday, 5 February 2016

Syrian army established full control Friday over the town of Atman northern of Daraa city, after the withdrawal of armed groups, including leaving their weapons and their equipment.

Sources from ground told Al-Manar reporter that a mass escape of armed groups from the town of Atman occurred, leaving behind their vehicles, weapons and ammunition after 36 gunmen were killed during clashes with the Syrian army in the town.

Atman is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Daraa Governorate and has an area of 14 square kilometers.

Moreover, Syrian sources from ground told Al-Manar TV that units of the army and the Popular Committees have also controlled on Friday the town of Ratyan in the northern countryside of Aleppo, expanding the secured area around the liberated towns of Nubbul and Zahraa.

The Syrian army and allies managed also to control Mayer town east of Nubbul, according to Al-Manar reporter who added that a number of terrorists were killed or injured during the confrontation.

In Palmyra, the Syrian army confronted a number of attacks on its sites in al-Maqalea in western the city, killing scores of terrorists.